ESPN
filed a lawsuit against Conference USA
in Manhattan federal court today,
alleging that the conference did not fulfill its contractual obligations to
the network when it sold its TV rights to Fox in January. ESPN's suit alleges
that the two sides reached an agreement in principle. ESPN also claims that
Conference USA never gave it a final offer to consider; ESPN says its original
contract mandates that it should have been given that right.

“Rights
agreements are at the core of our industry," said ESPN Senior VP/College
Sports Programming Burke Magnus. "ESPN and Conference USA
reached an agreement on a new extension after a prolonged negotiation. The
conference then changed their position out of the blue and reneged on that
agreement. At best, they violated our right to be given an opportunity to
consider a final offer." Conference USA
on Jan. 5 announced a $43M media rights deal with Fox.

The basis
of ESPN's complaint, as SportsBusiness Journal has previously reported, is
that ESPN and C-USA had a meeting as late as Dec. 23 to negotiate final points
of their potential deal. On Jan. 4, however, C-USA Commissioner Britton
Banowsky called ESPN execs to say that the conference’s
presidents elected to explore other opportunities. The conference the following
day announced its deal with Fox. In ensuing weeks, Conference USA
brokered talks between ESPN and Fox to try and find a compromise that would
allow both networks to share games; none was reached.

As part
of the Fox deal, it picks up the rights to a minimum of 20 regular-season
football games, including the football championship game that will be televised
on Fox, FSN or FX. The deal also includes a minimum of 10 regular-season basketball
games. When it announced the Fox deal, Conference USA
hyped the nearly 100% increase in rights fees.

It also
was happy that Fox would not make its football teams play regularly on Tuesday,
Wednesday or Friday nights, as they sometimes did on ESPN. The Fox deal does
call for some games on Thursday nights.